Today in 1868, US Patent 75203 A was issued, an invention of S. Franklin Schoonmaker, for his “Improved Mode of Preserving Hops.” There’s no Abstract, and there are so many errors in the OCR that it’s easier to just show the whole application.
Patent No. 2629988A: Refrigerating Jacket
Today in 1953, US Patent 2629988 A was issued, an invention of Samuel Lee, for his “Refrigerating Jacket.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:
My invention is an improvement in refrigerating jacket for vessels containing beverages and. coupled to tap lines through which the contents are withdrawn and served.
An important object of this invention is to provide a cooling or refrigerating apparatus having such construction that it can be employed to control the temperature of a keg or barrel of ale or beer, for example, in close proximity to the point where the beverage is delivered to the consumer. In its preferred form the apparatus is a unit and comprises a jacket having means to receive and carry a refrigerating agent and adapted to envelop the keg or barrel from which the beverage is to be taken.
Another object is to provide a refrigerating unit that is easy to handle and will keep a barrel or keg sufficiently cool till it has been emptied. The need for a cooling chamber and long delivery lines to the bar or counter is thus eliminated.
Beer In Ads #1838: Facts Versus Fallacies #64
Wednesday’s ad is another one for the Pennsylvania State Brewers Association, from 1916, No. 64 in series they did from 1915-17 called “Facts Versus Fallacies.” I have no idea how many were done but some of the them are numbered into low triple digits, suggesting there were a lot of them, all in an effort to stop Prohibition from happening and win over support for beer. This ad, marked “64,” is another interesting one because I has always been under the impression that studies showing that people who drink moderately will, on average, live longer than either people who overindulge and, importantly, total abstainers, were fairly recent, within the last few decades at the earliest. But as this ad makes clear, there was scientific evidence even before prohibition to that effect. But perhaps even more interesting was their argument that “the moderate drinker adds most to the world’s knowledge.” What they mean by that is moderate drinking makes many people more creative, rather than less, as prohibitionists insisted. But this is the true gem. “One need have no hesitation in saying that if all the intellectual products of the world’s abstainers could be put into one scale, and all of the products of the world’s drinking men could be put into the other, we should be amazed at the meagerness of the total abstainers’ product.” Which is slightly more polite way of saying sober people can’t make shit.
Beer In Ads #1837: Facts Versus Fallacies #59
Tuesday’s ad is another one for the Pennsylvania State Brewers Association, from 1915, No. 59 in series they did from 1915-17 called “Facts Versus Fallacies.” I have no idea how many were done but some of the them are numbered into low triple digits, suggesting there were a lot of them, all in an effort to stop Prohibition from happening and win over support for beer. This ad, marked “59,” is another interesting one that reports on a Russian prohibition imposed in 1914 because of the First World War. I’ve read mixed things about its success, and it was repealed in 1925. But according to the ad, people were dying from poisoning from homemade vodka alternatives and mortality rates for alcoholism were rising sharply. So, the argument went, we already had evidence that prohibition didn’t really work, and caused at least as many problems as it purported to solve.
Announcing Next Typology Tuesday: Irish-Style Dry Stout
Two months ago I tried to kick off Typology Tuesday with American Barleywine. Last month it was Bock. For the month of March, we’ll be highlighting Irish-Style Dry Stout.
But two months in, I have to admit that there’s only a very small number of people interested in participating in the same way as the Sessions. As I said in the original post this was something I was interested in doing, and if there were others who felt similarly, then great. So given that it’s probably just me, instead of trying to make it one day, instead I’ll make an announcement on the first Tuesday, and then whoever wants to write about that style can do so whenever they want over the next month.
So anytime before April 5, write a post on Irish-Style Dry Stout. You can essentially write about whatever you like, with the only proviso being it should have something to do with the featured type of beer. After your post is published, please let me know it’s up so I can include it in the subsequent round-up. You can send me the URL to your post either by leaving a comment here, or even by including the hashtag #Typology in a tweet.
Patent No. 5291004A: Card-Controlled Beverage Distribution System
Today in 1994, US Patent 5291004 A was issued, an invention of Michael S. Frank and R. Patrick Garrett, for their “Card-Controlled Beverage Distribution System.” Here’s the Abstract:
A self-service beverage distribution system includes a piping network with refrigerated tubing for transporting beverages, such as beer, from at least one source to at least one output. A drinker purchases a magnetic card which represents a predetermined quantity of beer, and which specifies which beer sources the drinker can have access to. A flow meter measures how much beer the drinker dispenses, and the quantity of beer represented on the card is decreased accordingly.
Beer In Ads #1836: Facts Versus Fallacies #55
Monday’s ad is another one for the Pennsylvania State Brewers Association, from 1916, No. 55 in series they did from 1915-17 called “Facts Versus Fallacies.” I have no idea how many were done but some of the them are numbered into low triple digits, suggesting there were a lot of them, all in an effort to stop Prohibition from happening and win over support for beer. This ad, marked “55,” is an interesting one that argues that a majority of people voting for a prohibition is undemocratic, saying. “Public law, to be effective, requires much more than the majority to support it. It requires general acquiescence. To leave the minority at the mercy of the whims of the majority does not conduce to law or good government, or justice between man and man.” They go on to quote Rousseau. “A majority of the people is not the people and never can be. We take a majority vote simply as the best available means of ascertaining the real wishes of the people in cases where it becomes necessary to do so.”
They Liked A Pint
This is a fun little find. In 2003, longtime graphic designer Harry Constantine retired from a career in London, and moved back to his home town of Nottinghamshire. His son was involved in starting up the Newark CAMRA chapter, and he joined him at one of their meetings. He was asked to help out with their newsletter, and ended up as the editor of the Beer Gutter Press, increasing its size from 8 to 20 pages during his tenure. There was a whole in the text one issue, and Constantine on the fly created a cartoon of Mother Theresa, titling it “They Liked A Pint” as a throwaway to fill it.
The cartoons proved to be a hit, and he continued doing them in each issue from then on, initially in black and white, but adding color later when the newsletter also added color. Since retiring from Beer Gutter Press, Constantine reminisced that only two of his cartoons drew objections, Jesus Christ and Abu Hamza, though they decided not to run the Hamza cartoon for fear of offending fundamentalist Muslims. I confess I don’t know who all the people are, and I suspect some of them are locals or at least Brits I’m unfamiliar with. But the ones I do know, and that’s about two-dozen of the forty cartoons, are pretty funny.
Beer In Ads #1835: Facts Versus Fallacies #51
Sunday’s ad is another one for the Pennsylvania State Brewers Association, from 1916, No. 51 in series they did from 1915-17 called “Facts Versus Fallacies.” I have no idea how many were done but some of the them are numbered into low triple digits, suggesting there were a lot of them, all in an effort to stop Prohibition from happening and win over support for beer. This ad, marked “51,” is all about a comparison between making owning a car illegal and the prohibition of alcohol.
Patent No. 783521A: Beer Cooling Apparatus
Today in 1905, US Patent 783521 A was issued, an invention of Joshua W. Harris, for his “Beer Cooling Apparatus.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:
This invention relates to certain improvements in devices of that class employed for the cooling of beer and other beverages, and has for its principal object to construct a novel form of cooling-tank in which any desired quantity of liquid may be retained in accordance with the demand.
